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Statistical Atlas

Average Weather On December 21 For Barrow, Alaska, USA

Location

This report describes the typical weather at the Wiley Post–Will Rogers Memorial Airport (Barrow, Alaska, United States) weather station over the course of an average December 21. It is based on the historical records from 1974 to 2012. Earlier records are either unavailable or unreliable.

Barrow, Alaska has a polar tundra climate. The area within 25 mi of this station is covered by oceans and seas (70%), tundra (24%), and lakes and rivers (6%).

Temperature

The temperature typically varies from -10Â°F to -10Â°F and is rarely below -25Â°F or above 6Â°F.

Solar Elevation

Elevation of the Sun above (positive) or below (negative) the horizon (black line). Yellow and gray fills indicate day and night, respectively. Light gray lines are the corresponding curves for the winter and summer equinoxes.

Clouds

The median cloud cover is 64% (partly cloudy) and does not vary substantially over the course of the day.

On average, the sky is clear or mostly clear 40% of the time, partly cloudy 15% of the time, and mostly cloudy or overcast 45% of the time.

Median Cloud Cover

Cloud Cover Types

The fraction of time spent in each of the five sky cover categories. From top (most blue) to bottom (most gray), the categories are clear, mostly clear, partly cloudy, mostly cloudy, and overcast. Pink indicates missing data. Outside the United States clear skies are often reported ambiguously, leading them to be lumped in with the missing data.

Precipitation

There is a 62% chance that precipitation will be observed at some point during the day.

The average measured liquid-equivalent quantity of precipitation is 0.002". Among only those days for which there is at least some measured precipitation, the average is 0.027" and the total rarely exceeds 0.037".

Probability of Precipitation

The fraction of days in which various types of precipitation are observed. If more than one type of precipitation is reported in a given day, the more severe precipitation is counted. For example, if light rain is observed in the same day as a thunderstorm, that day counts towards the thunderstorm totals. The order of severity is from the top down in this graph, with the most severe at the bottom.

When precipitation does occur it is most often in the form of slight snow (88% of days with precipitation have at worst slight snow) and moderate snow (10%).

Precipitation is observed with more or less equal probability throughout the day.

Types of Precipitation

Relative frequency of various types of precipitation over the course of a typical December 21.

Snow

There is a 97% chance that there will be snow on the ground. The average snow depth is 7.9". The snow depth is deeper than 9.5" one year in four and deeper than 12.8" one year in ten.

Dew Point

Average hourly dew point (black line) with percentile bands (inner bands from 25th to 75th percentile, outer bands from 10th to 90th percentile).

Wind

The wind speed is 12 mph (gentle breeze) on average and is rarely outside the range 5 mph to 21 mph (light breeze to fresh breeze). The wind speed does not vary substantially during the course of the day.